Hermetic Magic

I attended my last Shakespeare seminar in the city over the weekend and was quite impressed with the final session and the class overall. The seminar dealt with magic in Shakespeare. One of my favorite aspects of this discussion was that it often delved into the reality of Shakespeare’s world, helping to fill out a detailed picture of what these Elizabethans and Jacobeans were all about. If I learned anything, I learned that a good understand of this (or at least some understanding of this) is key to a good understanding of Shakespeare.

One of the specific things we discussed along these lines was the influence of Hermetic magic and the hermetic worldview in Shakespeare’s day. Hermeticism is a belief system based on the ancient writings of Hermes Trismegistus (I know, great name, right?). Complex and overarching, it is a holistic, encompassing religious philosophy based (among other things) on the so-called three parts of the wisdom of the whole universe: Alchemy (the exploration of the spirituality of matter), Astrology (the movement and influence of the planets on the natural world), and Theurgy (divine magic). It is singularly monotheistic and presents a worldview where God is the ultimate reality, standing apart from the Universe, the main force who gave us, many eons ago, a singular theology that predates all other theologies. It is a protean religion.

One of the central aspects of Hermeticism deals with science, namely, the idea that humanity can connect to, control, and influence nature through scientific experiment and “magic” (I put magic in quotes here because it’s important to differentiate and define it. It means the occult in this context, not a simple card trick or a Disney movie. Magic as a real thing.). The Hermetic worldview takes a step towards science then, claiming a connection to the unnatural world through, natural, scientific means.

So, what does this have to do with Shakespeare? Although still a complete novice in this stuff, these ideas do seem central to Shakespeare, serving as the backdrop for so many of the actions and themes in his plays. From Prospero to the Weird Sisters, from Hamlet’s ghostly father to the living statue of Hermione, this relationship between (and access to) the natural/unnatural world is woven intricately throughout so many of his works, a science-meets-religion aspect that gets at the divine through concrete, scientific efforts, through natural means, through things like specific ingredients used in a witches’ brew (Macbeth) or an all-powerful magic book (The Tempest). This relationship, this hermetical ying/yang, would have not only been understood by his audience, but accepted, believed, and even looked for. So it’s not all that strange, this strange world of the Bard, when you look at it through this lens. It’s rather natural actually.